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This Week in History for the week of Feb. 4-10, 2018

By Reporter-Herald Staff

Posted:
02/03/2018 08:58:02 PM MST

10 Years Ago

• Heavy equipment demolished the marina at Carter Lake that had been built and operating since the 1960s. The demolition was to make way for a new, larger building to be open by boating season. The $1.5 million project included roadwork and a new parking lot.

• The Group Inc. reported that the average home price in Loveland was $269,318, slightly than the average for the Northern Colorado region, which was $242,298. There were 1,782 home sales in Loveland for the year prior (2007), which was a 2.1 percent decrease from 2006.

• The Thompson School District named three finalists for the open superintendent of schools position, including Ron Cabrera, who was hired. He came to Thompson from Westminster, where he had been a deputy superintendent.

• Legislators passed a resolution to place a bronze cast of Enos Mills, who is considered the father of Rocky Mountain National Park, near the Capitol building in Denver. The statue, created by Estes Park artist Bonnie Fulford, was to be cast in Loveland.

• Larimer County public works employees were testing and assigning grades, on a scale from A to F, to all county roads based on safety, maintenance and capacity. The roads report cards were to be released in spring.

25 Years Ago

• Loveland Foods announced that it was closing its local meat processing plant, a closure that was expected to put about 60 people out of work. Owners of the business said it had been losing money for three years and the workers who lost their jobs would receive health and welfare benefits for six months.

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• Loveland officials said they worried that sales at the Loveland outlet mall would drop after a developer announced plans to build a 55-store outlet mall along Interstate 25 in Dacono.

• The group Boycott Colorado listed Larimer County as a "hate county" along with several others in Colorado because the majority of voters in Larimer cast ballots in favor of Amendment 2, which prohibited lawmakers from passing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

• A resident group called Loveland Committee for an Elected Mayor turned in a stack of petitions for verification to put a measure on the ballot to change the form of city government to that of an elected mayor. In 1963, the city had approved the switch to a city manager form of government.

• All of the volunteers with the Loveland Valentine Remailing Program signed that year's Loveland valentine and sent it, with the special cachet and cancelation, to an 18-year-old University of Denver student who was severely beaten when she intervened to try to stop a group of black youths from attacking a white youth. The 18-year-old was kicked unconscious and beaten badly enough that plastic surgery was required.

50 Years Ago

• A former Loveland resident, Dr. Mabel Pulliam, announced plans to establish a home for girls, ages 12 to 18, in need of supervisory care and a home. Pulliam, who had a similar operation in the Boulder area, planned to call the nonprofit the Pulliam-Neil Home for Girls.

• The city proposed a "moderate increase" in water and sewer rates after several years of stagnant rates. The cost for water was to rise 25 percent for residential customers and 15 percent of business customers, while sewer bills were to increase 20 percent across the board.

• Ted Thompson, known as "Mr. Valentine" and the "Official Assistant Cupid" was featured in the Reporter-Herald as the "perennial author of the verse on the Loveland Valentine." The first two years of the valentine remailing program, which Thompson spearheaded to start in 1947, the cachet was the same: "A Valentine greeting from a Sweetheart Town, Loveland, CO." Thompson began writing a different verse each year after that third year. Loveland's special stamp was expected to be upon 80,000 different valentines, down from a peak year in 1961 when Wrigley's featured the remailing program in its national advertising campaign.

• Local grocery stores, Albertsons and Safeway, offered different deals in their weekly grocery ads, including 5 pounds of apples for $1, ground beef for 48 cents per pound, a half-pound pack of margarine for 10 cents, a 1-pound loaf of white bread for 19 cents and T-bone steaks for $1.09 per pound.